When I Get Back to the U.S.A.

From the musical “Stop! Look! Listen!”, 1915
Words and music by Irving Berlin

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The sheet music:

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Accompaniment by Denese Coulbeck:

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Lyrics

1. I’ve been on the go for a month or so
   Now my heart begins to yearn
   For the U.S.A. many miles away
   And I’m anxious to return
   I have been around, covered lots of ground
   But it don’t appeal to me
   Seeing sights abroad is an awful fraud
   I’m as homesick as can be

Chorus
When I get back home again to the U.S.A.
In the land of peace and freedom I intend to stay
Somehow I never feel at home
When I’m away from there, anywhere
No other nation in this creation would ever do for me
I guess I’m cranky ’cause I’m a yankee
But then I’m proud to be
On the pier you’ll hear me shouting
“Hip, Hip, Hooray”
When I get back to the U.S.A.

[Chorus is sung in counterpoint to “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”:]
My country! ’tis of thee
Sweet land of liberty
Of thee I sing
Land where my fathers died
Land of the pilgrim’s pride
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring

2. There is not a thing in the song I sing
   That has not been sung before
   It’s a story old that has oft been told
   In a thousand songs or more
   But when I salam to my Uncle Sam
   In the good old U.S.A.
   It is not because I would ask applause
   But because I feel that way

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Sung here by Laurence Rubenstein: